Waste of Time

A couple of days ago, we received an email from the director of the China adoption program with our agency. We scheduled a Skype call with her to go over the specific process of China and she gave us a very good cliff-notes version of what to expect. She explained the difference between China's "Special Focus" list and their "Special Needs" list. The Special Needs list contains children that have milder special needs and this is the list used to make referrals to families once they have submitted their Dossier to China and have received their Log in Date. Most families will be matched to a child through this list and this is the process we are most familiar with based on our reading. The Special Focus list, however, is a list of children that have more moderate to severe special needs, have been on the Special Needs list for more than 2 months, or are in the older child category (over the age of 4.) and you can be matched with a child no matter where you are in the process. She told us that she had added our email to the monthly special focus list and this was really a surprise to us. We had been anticipating the time that we would be able to begin looking at waiting children, but we didn't expect it to be so soon. We got off of the Skype call and Justin was immediately checking the email. I was a little hesitant, just because it was so early and looking at pictures of kids that were waiting, somehow made it all seem so much more real. We have officially begun the adoption process and according to this lady, there is a chance we could see our future child when we open this email. I told Justin it was a waste of time. It was just too early. We hadn't even paid the money for our home study yet. We should wait until after our home study was done to begin looking at that list. In the end, we looked. And there were faces. 3 of them to be exact. And each of us have our favorites. But we ended the night tonight agreeing that at this point in time, this list is available to us so that we can pray. Pray for our process, pray for all of these children, and pray for our future child, whoever he or she is.